TORTURE/WAR CRIMES

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Trump claims he’s about to order the attack. But it is also a Trumpean message. The second part is addressed to the Kremlin and speaks about potential US-Russia cooperation to mutual benefit. Trump offers the bait of negotiations on curbing arms race, which is a priority issue for Russia.

Trump apparently thinks he’s ‘negotiating’ a ‘win-win’ solution by dangling a carrot and expecting Moscow to stand aside and letting the US attack on Syria go ahead. It’s tragi-comic, to say the least, that US diplomacy has come to such a pass – POTUS negotiating Syria as if it’s a property deal in Manhattan.

Is President Trump tough enough on Russia? For Secretary of State-nominee Mike Pompeo, the answer comes down to simple body count, as he bragged up recent killings of Russian citizens inside Syrian territory.

At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo boasted that “the Russians met their match. A couple hundred Russians were killed,” referring to a US massacre of military contractors back in February. Pompeo insisted these killings prove Trump’s toughness on Russia.

As FAIR has noted before (e.g., Extra!, 1/17; FAIR.org, 4/2/18), the term “clash” is almost always used to launder power asymmetry and give the reader the impression of two equal warring sides. It obscures power dynamics and the nature of the conflict itself, e.g., who instigated it and what weapons if any were used. “Clash” is a reporter’s best friend when they want to describe violence without offending anyone in power—in the words of George Orwell, “to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

It’s predictable, then, that in coverage of Israel’s recent mass shootings in Gaza—which have killed over 30 Palestinians and injured more than 1,100—the word “clashes” is used to euphemize snipers in fortified positions firing on unarmed protesters 100 meters away:

On Saturday, hundreds of mourners gathered in Gaza for the funeral of Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja, who was fatally shot by the Israeli army while covering a fresh round of deadly protests along the Israel-Gaza border. Photos show the 30-year-old journalist was wearing a flak jacket clearly marked ”PRESS” at the time of the shooting. He’s one of at least nine Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army during its brutal crackdown against Friday’s protests. The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed 31 people in total since Palestinians kicked off a 6-week-long nonviolent protest late last month, dubbed “The Great March of Return.” Both the International Criminal Court and the United Nations have rebuked Israel in recent days and warned its actions on the border could violate international human rights conventions.

Days after an Israeli human rights group urged soldiers to refuse orders to shoot at Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip along the fence that divides the occupied territory from Israel, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday accused the group of “outrageous absurdity” and defended the military for their “holy work.”

A French lawyer has filed a lawsuit in a Paris court against visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accusing him of complicity in torture in Yemen, an embarrassment for the French government as it rolled out the red carpet for its powerful guest.

Lawyer Joseph Breham, representing a Yemeni human rights group, is suing the crown prince, currently in France on an official visit, for his leading role in the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Breham told The Associated Press that French courts have “universal jurisdiction” to investigate the case since the lawsuit was filed Monday while the crown prince was present on French soil. But he acknowledged Bin Salman can’t be arrested by French authorities due to his diplomatic immunity.

The Paris prosecutor’s office didn’t respond to requests for comments from the AP.

The Nuremberg Tribunal which convicted and sentenced Nazis leaders to death conceived of wars of aggression – i.e. wars not launched in self-defense – defined the following as “crimes against peace”, or war crimes:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)
The Tribunal considered wars of aggression to be the ultimate war crime, which encompassed all other crimes:

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

In the past two years alone, the government has approved export of over £230m worth of arms and military technology, including jets and naval gunboats used in regular attacks on Palestinian fisher-folk

On December 12, 2013, a United States aerial drone launched four Hellfire missiles on a convoy of 11 cars and pickup trucks during a counterterrorism operation in rural Yemen. The strike killed at least 12 men and wounded at least 15 others, 6 of them seriously.

Yemen authorities initially described all those killed in the attack outside the city of Rad`a as “terrorists.” The US government never officially acknowledged any role in the attack, but unofficially told media that the dead were militants, and that the operation targeted a “most-wanted” member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) who was wounded and escaped.

Witnesses and relatives of the dead and wounded interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Yemen said the convoy was a wedding procession. They said everyone in the procession was a civilian, including all of the dead and injured, and that the bride received a superficial face wound.

The headline—“Bride and Boom!”—was spectacular, if you think killing people in distant lands is a blast and a half. Of course, you have to imagine that smirk line in giant black letters with a monstrous exclamation point covering most of the bottom third of the front page of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. The reference was to a caravan of vehicles on its way to or from a wedding in Yemen that was eviscerated, evidently by a US drone via one of those “surgical” strikes of which Washington is so proud. As one report put it, “Scorched vehicles and body parts were left scattered on the road.”

The U.S. military said Thursday that it intentionally bombed a hospital in Mosul, Iraq as part of its efforts to "eradicate" Islamic State (ISIS) fighters.

The attack on the Al Salam hospital complex took place Wednesday at the request of Iraqi forces, with coalition aircraft using "precision-guided munitions," Air Force Col. John Dorrian, spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, told reporters.

He said "it's very difficult to ascertain with full and total fidelity" that there were no civilian casualties, whether in the building targeted or elsewhere within the hospital complex.

US aircraft hit a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad, the city's trade fair, and other civilian buildings today, killing several people and wounding at least 25, hospital sources and a Reuters witness said.
The attacks occurred at 9.30am (0630 BST) and caught motorists by surprise as they ventured out during a lull in the bombing. At least five cars were crushed and their drivers burned to death inside, Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said.

Patients and at least three doctors and nurses working at the hospital were among those wounded.

The missiles obliterated wings of Baghdad's trade fair building, which lies next to a government security office that was apparently missed in the bombings.

Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power marched to Twitter to proclaim: “We call on Russia to immediately cease attacks on Syrian oppo[sition and] civilians.” Along with that decree, she posted a statement from the U.S. and several of its closest authoritarian allies — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.K. — warning Russia that civilian casualties “will only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”

Early this morning, in the Afghan city of Kunduz, the U.S. dropped bombs on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)). The airstrike killed at least nine of the hospital’s medical staff, and seriously injured dozens of patients. “Among the dead was the Afghan head of the hospital, Abdul Sattar,” reported the New York Times.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A crowded hospital in the embattled city of Kunduz that treats war wounded came under attack on Saturday and the American military acknowledged that it may have killed 19 patients, staff members and others at the facility while firing on insurgents nearby.

The attack, which the military said in a statement might have been “collateral damage” that occurred while engaging militants, drew a fierce international outcry. The head of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, condemned it and called for a “thorough and impartial investigation.” It also renewed scrutiny of the United States military’s record of causing civilian casualties, which has alienated the Afghan public and often undermined relations with the government here.

Donald Trump warned Russia to "get ready" after Moscow vowed to shoot any missiles fired at Syria down. "They will be coming, nice and new and smart," Trump tweeted.

Donald J. Trump
?
@realDonaldTrump
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

Donald Trump warned Russia to "get ready" after Moscow vowed to shoot any missiles fired at Syria down. "They will be coming, nice and new and smart," Trump tweeted.

Donald J. Trump
?
@realDonaldTrump
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

Over a dozen anti-war activists staged on Monday a blockade of an alleged missile factory in the UK county of Worcestershire at a site owned by the Roxel company manufacturing equipment for rockets and missiles after claiming to have uncovered evidence of the mass assembly of missiles intended for export to Saudi Arabia at the facility.

Jointly owned by the Paris-based Safran group and the Europe-wide armaments manufacturer MBDA, Roxel manufactures an assortment of propulsion systems intended for air to air, air to ground and ground to ground launched missile systems, something anti-war groups fear are being purchased by Saudi Arabia.

Richard Ferrand, the head of the ruling La Republique en Marche! (REM) party's faction in the National Assembly of France, said on Tuesday that he did no see why the country's arms sales to Saudi Arabia should be prohibited.

"I think we should maintain clear, frank and friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, even if only to keep equilibrium in the region and globally… I don't see why that [the arms sales to Riyadh] should be forbidden," Ferrand told the franceinfo broadcaster when asked if such trade were possible.

Ferrand clarified that it would depend on what these arms were to be used in the future, but affirmed that, for him, there was no "particular question" over the arms sales.

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

All other versions of this video that I have seen have scratchy audio or bad video, so I decided to put together this one with the best quality of both.
Jump to Ike's warning about the "unwarranted influence... by the Military-Industrial Complex":
8:41

Israel’s defence minister has said an Israeli sniper who shot a Palestinian across the border in Gaza in a controversial video “deserves a medal”.

Footage of the incident, in which a soldier expresses joy at having captured it on film, drew condemnation from politicians and rights groups.

Israel’s military said the man who was shot had been orchestrating a riot, and he was hit in the leg.

It said the soldiers involved in the filming will be dealt with.

In the video broadcast on Monday, three men are seen nearing a barrier or fence. The crack of an apparent gunshot is heard and one of the men, who had been standing still and appeared to be unarmed, falls to the ground.

A voice is heard to exuberantly declare in Hebrew: “Wow, what a video. Yes! Son of a bitch! What a video!”

A crowd of people are then seen rushing to retrieve the man who was shot. His condition is not clear.

The second mass demonstration by Palestinians on the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel took place on the 6th April 2018. 8 Palestinians were killed and 1,356 were injured by Israeli forces, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH).

Out of the 1,356 injuries, 754 required immediate transfer to the MoH hospitals or to NGO hospitals (including 81 children, 24 females and 730 males). From the injuries, 35 cases are critically life threatening and 347 may result in temporary or permanent disability. The remaining 947 are unspecified.

A further 602 injuries were managed by primary healthcare centres and medical points by the MoH, Union Health Workers Committee (UHWC) NGO and by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

The Israeli army has come under fire after a video emerged showing IDF soldiers cheering and rejoicing as a Palestinian protester is shot on the Gaza Strip.

It comes at a highly sensitive time forIsrael's military, which has faced mounting criticism over its use of live fire on the Gaza Strip border, where 31 Palestinians have been killed in recent mass protests.

The video, filmed through the rifle-sight of an Israeli soldier as he opens fire on Palestinians, was captured on December 22 in the area of Kissufim near the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said today.

The International Criminal Court at The Hague may prosecute Israel over the deaths of Arab rioters who clashed with IDF forces on the Gaza-Israel frontier over the past week and a half, a top ICC official warned Sunday.

Chief Prosecutor for the ICC Fatou Bensouda issued a statement Sunday demanding an end to the use of violence on the border between Israel and Gaza, and suggested that both Israel and the Hamas terror organization could be held responsible for the deaths of some 30 Arab rioters and terrorists killed since activists launched six weeks of violent protests on the frontier on March 30th.

"The resort to violence must stop," Bensouda said. "Any person who incites or engages in acts of violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing in any other manner to the commission of crimes within ICC's jurisdiction is liable to prosecution before the Court.”

On the second Friday of the Gaza protests, Israeli snipers shot nearly 500 Palestinians at the Gaza border, killing nine, and bringing the death total in two Fridays to 31. Last Friday’s carnage included the sniping of 6 journalists, killing one of them – 30-year-old Yaser Murtaja, even though he wore a flak jacket clearly marked PRESS.

This is not looking good, so the Israeli army has issued a response:

“The IDF does not intend to shoot at journalists, and the circumstances in which journalists were allegedly injured by IDF gunfire are unknown and are being investigated.”

This would be a contradiction of what Defense Minister Lieberman already promised – that “there would be no investigation”.

Indeed, Lieberman continues to contradict the official army message (as quoted in Haaretz):

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly refused to comment on a Russian Defense Ministry statement that accused Israel of targeting a Syrian airbase in Homs province on Sunday night.
Asked about a report by the Russian Defense Ministry, in which it said Israel had carried out a missile attack on Syria’s T-4 airfield in Homs province, Jonathan Conricus, an IDF press officer, said that the Israeli military “are aware of the statement” but “we have no comment [on it].”

US Defense Secretary James Mattis has not ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes against Syria in response to an alleged chemical attack in the militant-held town of Douma.
Speaking with reports on Monday, Mattis said he wouldn't "rule out anything right now" after being asked if the US was mulling strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Two Israeli F-15 fighters targeted Syria’s T-4 airbase in Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. The jets fired eight guided missiles, but five of them were shot down before they hit the airfield.
In a statement on Monday, the Russian military said: “Two Israeli Air Force F-15 jets fired eight guided missiles at the T-4 airfield.” The Israeli aircraft did not enter Syrian airspace and launched the strikes while flying over Lebanon.

Thousands of protesters returned to the border this Friday, burning great heaps of tyres to produce a black smokescreen which they hoped would hide them from Israeli snipers. Gaza’s health ministry has said that five people were killed and 1,070 people were wounded on Friday, including 293 by live fire.

The demonstrators know what to expect. A video from the first day of the march shows a protester being shot in the back by an Israeli sniper as he walks away from the fence separating Gaza from Israel. In other footage, Palestinians are killed or wounded as they pray, walk empty-handed towards the border fence, or simply hold up a Palestinian flag. All who get within 300 yards are labelled “instigators” by the Israeli army, whose soldiers have orders to shoot them.

Remember when the US admitted Syrian "Rebels" have used chemical weapons? Or when earlier this year, now former Secretary of State blamed Russia for an alleged Syrian chemical attack despite admitting he doesn't know who actually did it? Or when the US finally admitted there was "no evidence" Assad used sarin gas? Or just last week, when Trump said that the US is finally pulling out of Syria as a result of the defeat of ISIS (much to the Pantagon's fury and open-ended timetable for extracting Syrian resources)?

Terrorists have embarked on launching a false-flag chemical operation in Douma to blame the Syrian Army for the attack, field sources said Sunday, reminding that the Syrian and Russian military forces had continuously warmed of such a move by Jeish al-Islam terrorists.
The sources said that Jeish al-Islam has attacked residential areas in the town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta by poisonous gas to blame the army for the chemical assault.

The sources went on to say that the Jeish al-Islam front is collapsing under the rapid advances of the Syrian army units in Douma, adding that the terrorists' resort to false-flag chemical attack is aimed at preventing the government forces from driving the terrorists out of the region.

On Saturday, rebel-linked activists, including the notorious 'civil defense' group White Helmets, accused the Syrian government of carrying out a chemical attack>>>

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"A similar false-flag staged in Eastern Ghouta in 2013 worked well and gave a pretext to the then US President, Barack Obama, to move naval fleets to the Mediterranean for war on Syria, but a prompt plan by Moscow that envisaged a chemical disarmament of Syria under the auspices of the United Nations defused the US-Saudi plot," Khoshcheshm reminded.

"Later investigations by western journalists, including one from Associated Press disclosed that the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, had supplied a chemically-armed warhead to the militants in Eastern Ghouta," the analyst added.

"Now it seems again that through their request for another round of talks, Jeish Al-Islam militants are seeking to portray themselves as peace-seekers to buy some time under their move gives the ground to the US-led West to rush to their aid and," he continued.

The Jeish al-Islam terrorist group is using civilians in the Syrian town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta as human shields to slow down the Syrian Army's rapid advances in the region.
Jeish al-Islam has prevented a large number of civilians from leaving Douma in Eastern Ghouta for safe zones, using them as human shield to save its gunmen as the army is on march in the region.
***
The terrorists have resorted to every possible measure including frequent suicide attacks to prevent the army from advancing.

Tens of civilians have been killed in Jeish al-Islam's false-flag gas attack in the town of Douma that aimed to start international outcry against the Damascus government, a media outlet reported on Sunday.
Al-Jazeera network reported that a sum of 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds more have been poisoned after Jeish al-Islam lunched the false-flag chemical attack in Douma.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry stressed last month that “US instructors” were training militants to stage false flag chemical attacks in Southern Syria. The incidents were said to be a pretext for airstrikes on Syrian government troops and infrastructure.
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The planned provocations will be widely covered in the Western media and will ultimately be used as a pretext by the US-led coalition to launch strikes on Syria, Rudskoy warned.

“The provocations will be used as a pretext by the United States and its allies to launch strikes on military and government infrastructure in Syria,” the official stated.

The White Helmets, a group of rescuers operating in opposition-held areas in Syria, said on Saturday that most of the fatalities were women and children.
***
The US government has warned of a global response against Syria if reports of the chemical attack are confirmed.

The Syrian government, however, is calling it a fabrication, dismissing talk of the Syrian army using poisonous gas as "farcical".
***
"Douma has been subject to intense air strikes and much of the city is destroyed," Moayed al-Dayrani, a resident of Douma and medical volunteer, told Al Jazeera, adding that doctors were struggling to reach all the victims.

"We are currently dealing with more than 1,000 cases of people struggling to breathe>>>

A suspected chemical attack in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta sparked international outrage on Sunday, as state media reported that the last rebel holdouts in the one-time opposition stronghold had agreed to evacuate.

State news agency SANA, citing a government source, said fighters with the Jaish al-Islam rebel faction had agreed to leave Eastern Ghouta’s main town of Douma within 48 hours.

In exchange Jaish al-Islam would release hostages it had been holding, the source said. SANA reported dozens of buses were already entering Douma to begin the evacuations.
***
US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to condemn the attack, taking aim at both Assad – who he called an “animal” – and his supporters in Russia and Iran.

Palestinian medical sources have reported, Thursday, that Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian with a missile fired from an armed drone, late on Wednesday at night, while another Palestinian died from wounds he suffered last Friday, in the Gaza Strip. The sources said that an armed Israeli military drone fired a missile at Palestinian protesters near Erez Crossing, in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip, killing one of them, and wounding several others. Palestinian medics were unable to enter the area due to Israeli army fire, and severe military restrictions on border areas, and were only able to retrieve his body in the morning.

Israeli forces have shot dead seven Palestinians and wounded more than 1,000 as tens of thousands participated in a mass demonstration demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on Friday that 293 people were injured by live ammunition after Israeli forces fired on protesters who had gathered near the Israeli border in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of protesters suffered other injuries, including tear gas inhalation.

“Okay buddy, how ya doing today?” a Marine asks as he stands over the body of a dead Afghan man. “You look like you just got fucked.”

A cameraman with 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment stands nearby, rolling tape. He zooms in to show the man’s mangled right hand, where a round impacted before entering his torso.

It’s sometime in 2011 in Kajaki, Afghanistan. A scout sniper team has been cleared to take the shot, suspecting the target of being a spotter for Taliban fighters in the area. When the patrol arrives to inspect the body, they find that the now-dead man was a local shopkeeper, and he was unarmed. It’s unclear whether the man, whose killing was cleared under the rules of engagement, was an observer for the Taliban, or an innocent bystander.

Israel’s army expects up to 50,000 Palestinians to attend protests in Gaza on Friday, and is prepared to once again use deadly force against unarmed demonstrators, one week after Israeli snipers fired at least 650 bullets at Palestinian civilians, killing 15. With President Donald Trump apparently ignoring last week’s massacre in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, senior Israeli officials brushed off pleas from human rights groups to rescind orders that permit snipers to open fire on protesters who approach Israel’s perimeter fence.

The Israeli army's decision to open fire on Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza, which left 17 people dead and hundreds of others wounded, was "calculated" and "unlawful," a human rights watchdog has said.

In a report following the deadly "Land Day" protests in Gaza on March 30, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said senior Israeli officials who called for live ammunition to be used against protesters who did not pose a serious threat are responsible for their deaths.

The "high number of deaths and injuries was the foreseeable consequence of granting soldiers leeway to use lethal force outside of life-threatening situations in violation of international norms," HRW said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

If Newsweek is reporting this, it means Israel really screwed up big time!

Russia has changed the political calculus in Syria. Are we witnessing the political death of Benjamin Netanyahu?
Military Review, “the professional journal of the U.S. Army,” has reluctantly and indirectly said that Russia won the Syria war. The Review declared that Russia saw what happened to Gaddafi back in 2011, and they realized that something had to be done in order to stop the “regime change” ideology in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared then,

“Some leaders of the coalition forces, and later the NATO secretary-general, called the Libyan operation a ‘model’ for the future. As for Russia, we will not allow anything like this to happen again in the future.”

Twenty-two Palestinians were fatally wounded by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the month of March.

Eighteen Palestinians were fatally injured on 30 March, which saw the greatest number of Palestinian fatalities at the hands of occupation forces in a single day since Israel’s massive assault on the Gaza Strip in summer 2014.

Fourteen protesters were killed that day as occupation snipers opened fire on a mass demonstration held at various points along Gaza’s eastern boundary with in what Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq described as “a calculated, unnecessary, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of lethal force.”

Israel is detaining the bodies of two Palestinians – Muhammed Mhareb Muhammad al-Arabiyeh and Musab Zuheir Anis al-Saloul – killed during the protest. Israeli forces had prevented Palestinian search and rescue teams from evacuating the pair where they fell some 150 meters from the Gaza-Israel boundary fence.

If you want to understand what the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States really means consider the fact that Israeli Army snipers shot dead seventeen unarmed and largely peaceful Gazan demonstrators on Good Friday without a squeak coming out of the White House or State Department. Some of the protesters were shot in the back while running away, while another 1,000 Palestinians were wounded, an estimated 750 by gunfire, the remainder injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.

IDF soldiers will continue to fire at Gazans who come too close to the border fence, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Tuesday, ahead of an anticipated Palestinian assault on the barrier this Friday.

“Anyone who comes close to the fence will endanger their lives,” Liberman said during a visit to the border in which he tried to discourage participants in the “Great March of the Return” from trying to cross into Israel.

A Palestinian deaf child was shot and seriously injured by Israeli gunfire east of Khuzaa town to the east of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

The spokesman of the Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudrah, affirmed that the boy sustained a critical injury in the head and that he was transferred to the European Hospital in Gaza where he is receiving treatment.

On Friday, Israeli soldiers killed 16 unarmed Gazans in cold blood, wounding over 1,400 others, some with life-threatening injuries, the death toll sure to rise – another 49 Palestinians shot on Saturday.

A Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) press release said Israeli soldiers killed or wounded peaceful Gazan demonstrators, including women and children, threatening no one – a high crime demanding accountability, stressing:

“This huge number of victims proves that the Israeli forces continue to commit further crimes and use of excessive force against Palestinian civilians in disregard for their lives upon an official political decision.”

Something has shifted in the discourse of Israel since the Friday killings of 17 Palestinian protesters in Gaza, many of them plainly unarmed, by Israeli snipers from across a security fence: the hasbara– Israeli propaganda– is not working.

The country has plainly done something indefensible. The usual defenders are silent, and the criticism from the left/center is stronger than ever. Senator Bernie Sanders’s sharp criticism is actually leading the U.S. discussion of the event.

SANA’A, Yemen – Thousands of women and children gathered in Sana’a on Monday, to show their anger against the Saudi-Arabian-led coalition, following the raping of a Yemeni girl by a soldier of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition.

Organized by the local women’s authority, the protest took place in Bab-al-Yemen in the country’s capital.
***
According to a UNICEF report released earlier this year, over 5,000 children have been killed or injured in the conflict.

Israeli forces responded to several thousand Palestinian protestors in Gaza with live fire this weekend: killing 17 and injuring over 1,400. The United Nations and European Union urged a “transparent and independent” investigation into Israel’s Gaza massacre. The United States has already blocked a UN statement on the matter.

It’s one of those stories of the century that somehow never gets treated that way. For an astounding 25 of the past 26 years, the United States has been the leading arms dealer on the planet, at some moments in near monopolistic fashion. Its major weapons-producers, including Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, regularly pour the latest in high-tech arms and munitions into the most explosive areas of the planet with ample assistance from the Pentagon. In recent years, the bulk of those arms have gone to the Greater Middle East. Donald Trump is only the latest American president to preside over a global arms sales bonanza
With remarkable enthusiasm, he’s appointed himself America’s number one weapons salesman and he couldn’t be prouder of the job he’s doing.

In preparation for Israel’s seventieth year of independence, the Israeli ministry of education published a brochure titled “Israel Celebrates 70, Studying the Past, Appreciating the Present and Looking Towards the Future.” This brochure includes educational activities for teachers to engage students in the celebration of Israel’s 70th anniversary.
***
The brochure is in full color and is 112 pages long and not one chapter, not one page, not one paragraph and not even one word is dedicated to a people who make up the majority of the inhabitants of the land — the Palestinians.

(*With 40 Days left until the actual 70th Israel Idependence Day , they're simply taking precautions to not victimise American President Donald Trump , who may just be on hand to do the honors .)

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has lashed out at Israel’s actions during Land Day protests, which left at least 17 Palestinians dead and more than 1,500 injured on the very first day.

The senior parliamentarian has denounced the killings of dozens of Palestinians by the Israeli Defense Forces as an “act of crime and inhumanity by the illegitimate and usurping Zionist regime against the demonstrations by the nation of Palestinians.”
***
According to him, Israel’s policy of creating tensions along with Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (*IN 41 DAYS!) was part of a “dangerous plot,” which puts regional stability in peril. In conclusion, Larijani urged the parliaments of the OIC member-states and other nations to denounce Israel’s actions, support the Palestinians and deter the “Zionists” from triggering a fresh crisis.

The Russian embassy in the US is concerned about reported information that Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko is being abused in a US prison. Diplomats have demanded the institution to stop the violation of fundamental rights of the Russian citizen and intend to justice in accordance with international standards, said the embassy statement.

The Israeli army posted a statement on Twitter on Saturday apparently accepting full responsibility for the killings a day earlier of 15 Palestinians as thousands took part in the Great March of Return in Gaza.

The army then quickly deleted the admission – as more evidence of war crimes by its soldiers came to light – but not before a copy was made by the human rights group B’Tselem.

To give you an idea of how far the CIA, the US military, and its allied academics will go in MKULTRA “research,” here is what I wrote in 1995 about several human experiments. My information was based on the three key books I mentioned above, as well as Martin Lee’s classic, Acid Dreams:

“Dr. Robert Heath of Tulane University, as early as 1955, working for the Army, gave patients LSD while he had electrodes implanted deep inside their brains.”

“In the mid-1950’s, Paul Hoch, M.D., a man who would become Commissioner of Mental Hygiene for the State of New York, then a laborer in the field for the CIA, gave a ‘pseudoneurotic schizophrenic’ patient mescaline. The patient had a heaven-and-hell journey on the compound. But Hoch followed this up with a transorbital leucotomy [aka lobotomy]… Hoch also gave a patient LSD, and a local anesthetic, and then proceeded to remove pieces of his cerebral cortex, asking at various moments whether the patient’s perceptions were changing.”

We've heard all of this before as have Trump's supporters. He should really have more respect for them than repeat the lies he told about Afghanistan

Speaking to his base yesterday Trump claimed the US would be “coming out of Syria very soon” and it was time to let “the other people take care of it now.”

While that arguably sounds like a very good thing (unless you are a Kurd, in which case it’s yet another US stab in the back), we can recall Trump said the same things, only much more clearly and more often about Afghanistan only to end up authorizing another Pentagon surge in that country

(*lol: In Russia they think Trump double crosses are discouraging his base !)

Order to State Department to hold off on spending jibes with president’s call for an early exit

President Donald Trump froze more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in Syria>>>

(*not breaking with tradition .
Since when have we been into helping a nation we've put the big bucks into demolishing , recover ?
Assad Won ! We get the $200Mn consolation prize that we can spend elsewhere, on what we do really good , like China)

Nikki Haley lashes out at Russia, UN Security Council over fall of Syria's eastern Ghouta

The United States on Tuesday condemned the forced surrender of one of the last rebel-held enclaves in Syria and accused Syrian government forces of using a U.N.-backed cease-fire to accomplish it.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, blamed Russia for supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad and playing a “central role in the bombing of Syrian civilians into submission.”

Haley, speaking at a special session of the U.N. Security Council, also lashed out at her fellow members of the organization, saying they had failed to call out Russia and Syria’s other key ally, Iran.>>>

President Donald Trump has made a surprise announcement that US forces will be withdrawing from Syria, citing the defeat of Islamic State and the need to defend US borders and rebuild “crumbling” infrastructure.
“We're coming out of Syria very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” Trump said during a speech in Richfield, Ohio on Thursday, dedicated to his infrastructure initiative.

The US spent $7 trillion in the Middle East, Trump said, describing how the US would build schools only for insurgents to destroy them, while there was no funding to build schools in Ohio.

“We build a school, they blow it up. We rebuild the school, they haven’t blown it up yet, but they will,” he said.

(*My doublespeak isn't that fluent , but there's definetly a dash of BEX sprinkled in with that last part .
Hillary Clinton , if The Deep State made her give this same address , may have said; "We Came , We Made A Mess , And Now Others Can Take Care Of It")

The IDF has confirmed they fired a tank shell at two Palestinians who approached a security fence in Gaza, hours ahead of upcoming mass protests in the area. The tank killed a local farmer, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

(*In another 2000 years , children will read from The Torah , where this too shall be blamed on God )

How many people have been killed in America’s post-9/11 wars? I have been researching and writing about that question since soon after the U.S. launched these wars, which it has tried to justify as a response to terrorist crimes that killed 2,996 people in the U.S. on September 11th 2001. But no crime, however horrific, can justify wars on countries and people who were not responsible for the crime committed, as former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz patiently explained to NPR at the time. “The Iraq Death Toll 15 Years After the U.S. Invasion” which I co-wrote with Medea Benjamin, estimates the death toll in Iraq as accurately and as honestly as we can in March 2018. Our estimate is that about 2.4 million people have probably been killed in Iraq as a result of the historic act of aggression committed by the U.S. and U.K. in 2003. In this report, I will explain in greater detail how we arrived at that estimate and provide some historical context.

I have no doubt that gun control groups are organized by agents of the police state. The United States is falling apart.

The vast majority of Americans are being ground into the dirt by government at all levels. There is no democracy. There is only looting.

The One Percent fear that sooner or later even insouciant Americans might rise up. But they can’t if they are disarmed. That is all gun control is about.

Taking away guns gives control to governments. The founders of this
nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power
may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did by trying to
disarm the populace of the colonies. It is not difficult to understand
that a disarmed populace is a controlled populace.

They want you arguing over who should and shouldn't be called a terrorist based on what ideology you subscribe to and what color the latest killer's skin was.

They do not want you talking about the way the label "terrorist" itself is being used to justify unconstitutional detentions, torture, mass surveillance, and wars.

They want you arguing over whether to support the Democrats because the Republicans will take civil rights away from disempowered groups or Republicans because the Democrats will take away your guns and force you to bake gay wedding cakes.

They don't want you talking about the fact that both parties advance Orwellian surveillance, neoliberal exploitation and neoconservative bloodshed in a good cop/bad cop extortion scheme to keep Americans cheerleading for their own enslavement.

They want you arguing about whether Trump did or did not collude with Russia.

“The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday,” Bolton said. (The 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution will be on February 11, 2019.) “The declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” Bolton added. “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.”

Several incoming rocket sirens were activated in southern Israeli communities with local residents uploading videos of "interceptions."

No rocket barrage was launched towards Israel Sunday night following reports of at least a dozen rockets launched from the Gaza Strip after incoming rocket sirens were heard in several communities.

“Everything is routine,” IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis said on a call with reporters. “All of the alarms were triggered by machine gun fire in Gaza. There were no rockets which fell inside Israeli territory.”

(*A Likely Story .
Get used to The Likely Stories , if you're not already . 58 more days till we meld right into this , because Mister Tough Bluster Trump isn't sure if Iron Domed Israel even wants peace .
So , the next Likely Story will probably come after Trump moves Israels capitol for them .
-He didn't know ,
-there was no choice
-somebody else .

The numbers of casualties of U.S. wars since Sept. 11, 2001 have largely gone uncounted, but coming to terms with the true scale of the crimes committed remains an urgent moral, political and legal imperative, argues Nicolas J.S. Davies.

On March 16, 1968, a bloodied unit of the Americal division stormed into a hamlet known as My Lai 4. With military helicopters circling overhead, revenge-seeking American soldiers rousted Vietnamese civilians — mostly old men, women and children — from their thatched huts and herded them into the village’s irrigation ditches.

As the round-up continued, some Americans raped the girls. Then, under orders from junior officers on the ground, soldiers began emptying their M-16s into the terrified peasants. Some parents desperately used their bodies to try to shield their children from the bullets. Soldiers stepped among the corpses to finish off the wounded.

The slaughter raged for four hours. A total of 347 Vietnamese, including babies, died in the carnage that would stain the reputation of the U.S. Army. But there also were American heroes that day in My Lai. Some soldiers refused to obey the direct orders to kill.

The numbers of casualties of U.S. wars since Sept. 11, 2001 have largely gone uncounted, but coming to terms with the true scale of the crimes committed remains an urgent moral, political and legal imperative, argues Nicolas J.S. Davies.

Any support I’ve shown for Trump has gone out the window this evening. And no, I am not being melodramatic. I am a simple man with modest needs. One of them is for my country to stop fighting unnecessary wars. When you wake up and realize that we’re the bad guys and that the media propaganda is there to make you docile, you will see that nothing else matters but human life. Forget about healthcare, transgender bathrooms, abortion, tax cuts — everything is secondary to the life expectancy of the men and women who serve in our military — our sons and daughters, or neighbors.

In an unbelievable move, Trump has replaced Gen. McMaster with the very worst person living in America, John Neocon Scum Bolton.

Bolton was part of a neocon cabal, spearheaded by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), founded by Bill Kristol, whose lineage is Trotskyite through and through.

John Bolton is a long time leader of the War Party, was a major promoter of the lies about Iraq which fostered our war, was former Vice President of the neocon nesting American Enterprise Institute and advisor to JINSA (Likud Think Tank in Washington which long urged Israel to violate Oslo accords). Bolton never gained congressional approval, the is legitimacy for his "Ambassadorship" to the UN and is despised by most of the outside world's nations.

America is not safer being hated and represented to the world by one of the main architects of the policies which led to such hatred. Every time he speaks he is a symbol of go-it-alone America and a lightening rod for hate against America.

As special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, we take a look back at Washington’s record of meddling in elections across the globe. By one count, the United States has interfered in more than 80 foreign elections

Fifty years ago this month, on March 16, 1968, two companies of US Army troops belonging to the Americal Division entered the My Lai and My Khe hamlets of Son My village, in Quang Ngai province, and killed 504 Vietnamese civilians – overwhelmingly women, children, and old men – in cold blood. The national press and political elites have long learned to treat the massacre as a tragedy that did not reflect official US policy. And ever since the Peers Commission report on My Lai was finally released to the public in November 1974 (the completed report had been transmitted to the Army chief of staff in March 1970), the press and public have believed that the commission, led by Lieut. Gen. William Peers, not only revealed the extent of the massacre but exposed the cover-up, implicating officers all the way up to the commander of the Americal Division, Gen. Samuel Koster.

It was 15 years ago today when the U.S. invaded Iraq on the false pretense that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The attack came despite worldwide protest and a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council. At around 5:30 a.m. in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, air raid sirens were heard as the U.S. invasion began. The fighting has yet to end, and the death toll may never be known.>>>

Graham Peebles says a new Ethiopian prime minister and spurious reforms will not silence the cries for change, and that what is needed is the lifting of the state of emergency, general elections, the release of political prisoners, and unity among all ethnic groups and tribes. >>

Haspel’s victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer John Kiriakou say: “We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”

We now know for certain that the Ruling Cabal has been using USG and its secret factions in various agencies like DHS, FEMA, the FBI, the CIA, and foreign groups like the Mossad, DVD and other subcontractors, to repeatedly engineer and stage Gladio-style False-flag attacks.

More and more these Cabal ordered, USG run false-flag attacks are now being exposed for what they actually are, inside-job attacks on We The People. And they are being deployed in order to convince We The People to give up more Constitutional rights (especially the right to bear arms) in exchange for promises of increased safety from terror.

The US has established a new base in Southeastern Deir Ezzur and dispatched weapons and military equipment to the region, field sources said as Russia warned of American forces' possible attack on Syrian army positions.

The sources said on Tuesday that the US forces have built a new and advanced military base in al-Omar oilfield in Southeastern Deir Ezzur, adding that they have also transferred a large volume of arms and equipment, including missiles, military vehicles and bridge equipment to the regions of their deployment in Koniko oilfield, al-Omar oilfield and al-Jafreh.